


The Dating Worries and Woes of Tsunade Senju (and Other Short Stories)

by Kenzie_Perth



Category: Naruto
Genre: Crack, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Fix-It, Multi, Non-canonical pairings yay, Noragami AU, Pairings should be taken with a grain of salt, This is basically whatever pops into my head, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, now featuring fluff, so basically everyone, so much crack, unexpectedly, you betcha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenzie_Perth/pseuds/Kenzie_Perth
Summary: Naruto is a diverse and fascinating world, filled with many untold stories... sometimes for good reason.Featuring gems such as "The Reason Umino Iruka Actually Teaches (it Isn't the Salary)", in which Naruto is a ridiculous monster no matter what universe it is, and "How Dead is Dead?", in which the title is a question that Haruno Sakura would really like to know the answer of. Also, she's getting reaaaaaally experienced with the whole time-travel thing.(Cross-posted on FF.net.)





	1. The Dating Worries and Woes of Tsunade Senju

Tsunade Senju had a very good reason for not dating anyone on her team.

In the beginning, she might have liked Orochimaru a little bit (at least more than Jiraiya, that brat) – and who could blame her? That lovely long black hair, that brooding look, the tragic past – oh wait, wrong generation. Apologies from the narrator.

She was certainly aware of the fact that Jiraiya liked her in a sort of puppy dog sort of way that was simultaneously annoying and kind of adorable. Mostly, though, he needed to leave her alone.

More than anything, though, Tsunade would succeed in being a first-rate kunoichi, which meant that despite her crush on her teammate and her annoyance at the other, she behaved professionally for the most part. (At least she tried). It would be stupid for a Jounin to fail her mission because she was making eyes at a boy.

That all sort of fell apart one day during a group training session. Tsunade was a bit late to the agreed upon training ground for reasons utterly unimportant and likely to be forgotten sooner rather than later, which mean that both Orochimaru and Jiraiya had arrived before her.

They were also in a very secluded area, with Hashirama-grown trees hiding the majority of the training ground from civilian and (most) ninja view – even chakra sensing was muffled to a degree, because of the odd nature of Mokuton-made trees.

Well, Tsunade walked onto the training ground, an apology for tardiness on her lips and expecting to see the boys of her team sparring. They were sparring.

With their faces.

Rather intensely.

Suddenly, everything made so much more sense to the girl now.

She sat there for a minute, but things were getting rather awkward and they showed no sign of letting up, so Tsunade sighed and gave up, walking away to have the breakfast she missed. There was this new ramen stand that the Jounin in the mission room kept mentioning – Ichi-something. (She snapped a picture first, though. For blackmail purposes.)

Huh.

A couple months later, an amused Sandaime was teasing Tsunade about Jiraiya.

He was very confused when the woman started laughing hard enough that she fell off her stool and spilled her ramen.


	2. Oops, I Did It Again (How Dead is Dead?)

The first time Sakura died she was 12 years old.

It was on her first mission to Wave Country and it was because she didn't duck fast enough.

Momochi Zabuza's sword cut cleanly through the top of head - there was lots of blood and brain matter ruining her dress but Sakura didn't care. Mostly because she was dead.

Except instead of any of the expected afterlives or reincarnation or even nothing, there was the words

**YOU DIED. RESTART?**

**Y/N**

That was the first time.

The second, Sakura didn't remember until she saw her client for her first C-rank mission. She dimly heard Naruto protesting the attitude of Tazuna and Kakashi-sensei's admonishment through the stream of _panicdeathdeathdeath_

"Maa, Naruto. You should follow Sakura's example." Sakura looked up and smiled, hiding her terror.

This time it was a stray kunai from the battle between Kakashi-sensei and Zabuza that did her in.

The third time, it was ANBU determining her a possible infiltrator and dragging her to T&I straight out of the Academy. (She bit off her own tongue and bled out rather than face her village's generous hospitality towards spies - the sad thing was, it was quite hospitable compared to the other Hidden Villages.)

The fourth time, she accompanied Naruto on the mission to retrieve Tsunade. One well-applied chakra scalpel from Kabuto was all it took to send her back to the restart screen.

The fifth, it was a murderous Sasuke burying a Chidori in her chest, Naruto's Ransengan in her back. (There was guilt there; even when she was saving his life, she always turned her back on Naruto).

The sixth, a quiet assassination by Zetsu for being far too bold.

The seventh, crushed to death by Pein's attack on Konoha.

The eighth was a long and painful death handed to her by a grieving and power-mad Sasuke, blaming her and Konoha for everything wrong with him and his family. (The image of him dropping his tanto, eyes wide with shock and remorse as Sakura breathed her last would not leave her for a very long time.)

After that, Sakura stopped keeping track.

It was probably the 40th time that she managed to die of old age (after, of course, getting offed by various members of the Akatsuki, bad luck (and similar events of the like), and in one memorable occasion, getting run over by an elephant summon), kicking the can before her husband and her child-turned-Hokage. When the restart screen appeared, she almost didn't choose yes. 

Almost.  


Haruno Sakura was a precocious girl, her parents had decided in order to save their sanity. She had always had very knowing green eyes since she was far too young, with a stare that nearly made her aunt drop her in her first two weeks.

So when Sakura returned from her first day of Academy with an expression that gave Mebuki an impression of her own grandmother - a long, calculating look - she wasn't particularly surprised, and, quickly recalling 17 stumped councilors and a bank account with contents only disappearing as fast as her sanity - asked instead how her daughter's first day of school had been.

Actually, it had been great. The earlier the better seemed to apply to massive timeline changes, Sakura had found, and remembering this early in her friends' lives meant that there was a lot she could still change.

This time, she had decided halfway through learning the proper angle to hold a kunai at, she would pull a Naruto and save everyone.

'Let's see,' she thought as she laid out her homework on her desk, 'The Uchiha massacre has nearly six months before it'll become a problem...'

(Far off in the dark, a tragically loyal Uchiha felt a shiver run up his spine.)  


(After all, so what if she died?)

(It wasn't like she didn't have a second chance.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title more-or-less sums up my thoughts on this now. (Sue me, I wanted to write a time-travel and I really like Naruto at the time, so this was born.)
> 
> Still old stuff.


	3. Or the one where Umino Iruka is about to have a fit

It was well known that the Hidden Leaf Village treated its Shinki the best of any God Village; unlike the forbidding Mist and Cloud, the ninja of Leaf prided themselves on unique matches between Shinki and Kami, strong partnerships that used what would be viewed as weaknesses in other, more militant villages as strengths.

That being said, Umino Iruka, part-time Shinki of Kakashi Hatake and full-time teacher of aspiring young Kami and their potential partners, had never seen such a uniquely imbalanced team. The typical team was two Shinki and a Kami; one Shinki was usually combat-oriented while the other was usually support- or defense-oriented. (If a Kami joined ANBU, they would bring their Shinki with them to form a larger team with whoever else they got assigned to.)

However, this wasn't always a guarantee; since teams were assigned before Shinki were named and therefore based purely on guesswork, sometimes combinations like this happened.

Naruto Uzumaki, radiating waves of energy and excitement, stood excitedly in front of Iruka, holding in one hand a massive metal battle hammer with pink and green wrappings around the grip – the head of the hammer was probably heavier than Naruto's entire body mass, Iruka was sure – and in the other, a wickedly dangerous-looking black sword that crackled with electricity and in general gave off a very strong air of dramatic brooding.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto shouted again, as if he did not very much have Iruka's full attention. "I got to name my team, and they're awesome, and Kaka-sensei's a jerk, and I have my own Shinki now!" Each statement was punctuated by a swing of both weapons that made Iruka wince. "Don't you agree, 'ttebayo?" The last sentence was addressed towards the Shinki in his hands.

He gulped, rubbing the scar on the bridge of nose nervously. "That's very nice, Naruto. Why don't you let them go now, though? If they're stuck in weapon form, they won't be able to tell me about their special Shinki training, will they?"

Naruto pouted for a second, but released them both – in a matter of seconds, two very rumpled looking genin-Shinki were standing in front of him.

Haruno Sakura rounded on Naruto the moment she was released, hair ruffled and clothes wrinkled. "Your hands are sweaty!" she cried, shivering.

"Hn," agreed Sasuke, who looked equally messy but seemed to be pulling it off better.

Pouting, Naruto looked between both their annoyed faces and promptly burst into tears.

Iruka sighed. Some days, he wondered why he had agreed to become a teacher.

A second later, a gray head of hair poked in through the window, followed by a lurid orange book and finally the spindly but dangerous form of Kakashi Hatake. Iruka took one long look at the expression on his mostly-hidden face and suddenly remembered exactly why he had taken up this job.

As Naruto somehow managed to grab both his Shinkis' hands as well as Iruka's and began to drag the trio towards his wayward sensei, babbling delightedly all the way, Iruka reflected that the payoff of teaching was still more than having a chance to avoid Kakashi for a legitimate reason.

And it certainly wasn't the salary for teaching beginning genin.


	4. omg how do people write romance wth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Noragami AU is now three part -- here's part two
> 
> also fair to note this primarily focuses on Kakashi and Iruka's interactions and less on worldbuilding, but the next section is all worldbuilding yay

Iruka hasn’t needed to be ready to fight at any moment in nearly six years (the little brush with Mizuki hardly counts), so when the mission scroll arrives on the back of a little pug ninken that he vaguely recognizes while he’s eating breakfast and bemoaning the ever-growing stack of papers to grade, he supposes he has an excuse for being caught off-guard.

That being said, the way that the dog keeps laughing at his (not that fluffy) bathrobe is kind of off-putting, and it’s making the missive rather hard to get through. (Honestly, one would think that the Hokage would have better handwriting than a bunch of pre-genin, but now he has hard evidence that proves otherwise.) The gist of the message, though, is that all available Shinki genin-level or above are being mobilized alongside their respective wielders to serve Konoha in the fight against Madara, one way or another.

He’s so busy envisioning his freshly-graduated students being caught in the middle of enemy fire on the front lines, even though he knows the fighting isn’t anywhere near that desperate yet and, if the major powers play their cards right, never will be, that he nearly misses Kakashi’s presence until the ninja is right behind him.

“I like your robe, sensei,” is the first thing he hears before a pair of strong arms are wrapped him, holding him tight for a second before letting him stand up and turn around.

“Hi,” Iruka says softly, pulling down the edge of Kakashi’s mask and pressing a little kiss to the corner of his lips. Then, serious, he extricates himself from Kakashi’s grip and waves the missive in his face. “Do you know where we’re being assigned to? The mission scroll didn’t really specify.” 

Kakashi tilts his head. “That’s why I’m here. We’re going to be sent to the front, wherever that is.” The unspoken ‘where else’ is implied with his bitter tone and the brush of his fingers against his hitaite where it covers his Sharingan eye. 

Iruka sits down. He knows that the school will still run without him, and that there are other teachers who can take over his class who aren’t also powerful Shinki on a team with one of the key forces of Konoha. He also knows that his next-door neighbors will water his plants and take care of the fish if he asks (and disables the relevant traps), and to be honest, war almost sounds preferable to the end-of-term papers piling up to be graded.

Before he can finish his thought process and come to the logical conclusion, Kakashi sighs and kneels down in front of him, shooing away the still snickering pug ninken. “If you want to stay in Konoha, I’m sure I could convince Tsunade.”

“No,” Iruka says before even realizing the words are coming out of his mouth. “No,” he says again, the lines of his face settling into determination. “It’s been a long time, but I owe it to Konoha—to you—to do my part alongside everyone else.”

Kakashi eye-smiles, like this is the answer he was waiting for. “Maa, so dutiful.” His smile slides away again. “There’ve been a few new additions to the team – we have nearly a week and a half before we’re deployed, so we might as well start getting used to each other as soon as possible.”

Iruka stands up with him, about to follow him out the window when he looks down. “Ah, Kakashi, wait a second, will you? I need to go change.”

The ninja turns around, mask already pulled up over his mouth, one leg out the window, and then smiles again. “Of course.” And then, as an afterthought, “Maa, sensei – will you be needing any help with that?”

(They’re three hours late to team training, but as Kakashi says, at least they have an actual excuse this time. Chuunin vests are very difficult to put on when the wearer has both their hands occupied.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huh I just realized the first one was in past tense wasn't it

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhhh no excuses here, besides this is old? I'm trying to cross-post some of my stuff.


End file.
